New Report Spotlights Fatal Truck Crash Trends

Shares State Rankings and Analysis of FARS Data

Washington, DC (November 19, 2021) – The Institute for Safer Trucking (IST), a nonprofit committed to educating the public about trucking safety, today released its first annual Safer Trucking Report. The report highlights fatal truck crash trends and shares state rankings using a data visualization tool of crashes involving large trucks based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).

“Our hope is that the Safer Trucking Report will provide greater public awareness and understanding of fatal truck crashes in the United States. With more than 5,000 people killed in truck crashes in 2019 alone, a staggering increase over the last decade, we must prioritize making this essential profession safer for everyone on our roads,” said IST Principal Harry Adler. “Our report includes several key recommendations for NHTSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) that will improve truck safety.”

The report includes sections on:

·     Increases in truck crash fatalities;

·     Times and locations of fatal truck crashes;

·     Types of trucks in fatal crashes;

·     Demographics of truck drivers in fatal crashes;

·     Fatal work zone crashes involving large trucks;

·     Bicyclists involved in fatal truck crashes;

·     State speed and weight limits for large trucks; and

·     Truck underride crashes.

Tracy Quinichett Whitehead (Columbia, MD), an IST board member who lost her daughter, Channing, in a 2009 truck crash, said “It is important to remember that each of the many statistics contained in this report represent people—parents and children, siblings and friends. We have included some of those stories to remind the public of the human cost of truck crashes. We hope the report serves as a beacon to anyone who has lost a loved one in a truck crash to know that there is a community of survivors and families at Institute for Safer Trucking that is ready to help them.”

“While the report relies on NHSTA data, the Institute for Safer Trucking has performed several analyses never before published. Identifying that bicyclists’ deaths in large truck crashes are not coded as “underride” was a painful truth,” said Laura Fredricks (East Brunswick, NJ), the mother of Emily Fredricks, who was tragically killed by a large truck while riding her bicycle. Following Emily’s death, Laura and her husband, Rich, co-founded the Emily Fredricks Foundation in their daughter’s honor. “The U.S. Department of Transportation should follow IST’s recommendation to ensure that all road users are counted as victims of truck underride collisions.”

“This report underscores exactly what Road Safe America has been saying for nearly two decades: speeding trucks are a deadly problem in this country,” said Steve Owings (Atlanta, GA), co-founder of Road Safe America, a nonprofit committed to improving truck safety. “I was not surprised that roads with higher speed limits (above 75mph or more) saw truck crash deaths increase at a much faster rate than roads with safer speed limits over the last ten years. Sadly, this did not have to be the case considering electronic speed limiters have been built into all class 7 & 8 trucks since the late 1990s. The FMCSA and NHTSA should immediately follow the IST recommendation to require speed limiters be set on all trucks that have them.”

The full report can be found at Institute for Safer Trucking.